Tuesday, November 29, 2011

It's Muffin Tin Monday (or it was yesterday, anyway)! In our house, Christmas preparations are picking up speed, and it's not even December yet! But The Muffin is Incredibly Excited about it, plus my shopping isn't as organised this year as it usually is, and we've got a Christmas party happening at our house this year, so there's a fair bit to organise...

Anyway, the point is, I decided to start our Christmas themed Muffin Tins this week, so we get to do a few of them before the big day. This one was a bit of a rush job, I shall do something more creative in the weeks to come!

I was very pleased with how the "Plum Pudding" turned out - it's just a whole small plum, with a bit of yoghurt drizzled on top, and holly made from a craisin and apple skin. The Muffin was thrilled with it. Upon discovering it was not the dessert, she wanted to know where the dessert was. I told her she had to find it by eating the other things. Eventually she discovered that the green pick was poked into a white marshmallow (hidden by all the popcorn). She found this simple little hide-and-seek aspect great fun.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

In our house, we Never Ever miss a Muffin Tin Monday. It's just too much fun (and The Muffin does remember!) However, we do get busy. So sometimes I do miss a Muffin Tin Monday linkup. Like last week. Sorry about that.

But the good news is, that means this week you get Two Muffin Tins For The Price Of One!

First, last week's tin. The Muffin has been quite interested lately in the idea of Disneyland. I can't quite remember why we started talking about it, but I ended up showing her my photos of when I went there, and she was fascinated. And then, the contestants on Junior Masterchef got taken to Disneyland, and that was it. She was hooked. We had an elaborate Sylvanian Families Disneyland set up all over the lounge room for a week, complete with "Splash Mountain" (a slide made with pillows down from the lounge), "Sleeping Beauty's Castle" (Zhu Zhu pet castle), "Big Thunder Mountain Railroad" (a small train set with Megabloks "mountain" in the middle), and the list goes on. Okay, I'll admit it - it was actually kind of awesome. I had fun too. :o)

Anyway, so last week's Muffin Tin just had to be Disneyland themed:

Top Row: Banana person (this was not part of the theme. I had run out of ideas at this stage, so I shoved some sultana eyes in half a banana and said "look, this naughty banana person has jumped into your Disneyland tin!" She thought this was hysterical, and kept shrieking "Oh dear, what a naughty banana person!"); Peach Big Thunder Mountain (yes, I know. Rather a lot of imagination required); Mickey head shape made from a tiny choc chip cookie and two mini licorice allsort circles.

Bottom Row: Mickey Mouse and Daisy Duck head Vegemite sandwiches; Yoghurt with red, white and blue stars (we talked about these being the colours of the American flag, and that Disneyland was in America); Mickey Mouse head pikelets (with sultana eyes & nose, and Gourmet Writer mouth).

Here's a closeup of Mickey and Daisy:

I have a Disney cookie press kit, bought by my mother a thousand years ago at Disneyland, so I used a couple of the cookie stamps to cut these sandwiches out, then added sultana and Gourmet Writer details.

So it wasn't the most elaborate Disney tin - it was kind of a last-minute idea - but she loved it. As evidenced by The After Shot:

But wait, there's more!

This week's tin has a Seasons theme. The Muffin helped me come up with ideas for this one:

Yes, I am very aware of the irony of teaching my daughter to associate Winter primarily with snow, when we live in Western Australia (where it has literally never snowed at ground level. Very rarely we may get a tiny bit on our highest mountains, and it melts virtually immediately). But the thing is, snow is so much easier to represent with food than rain is, and I was feeling lazy. We did talk about the fact that we don't get snow here.

The After Shot:

If you'd like to check out what other mums did this week, head on over to The Muffin Tin Mom's blog. Why not make one yourself next week? (hey, you don't even have to have a kid....!) :o)

Monday, November 7, 2011

The Muffin has been talking about doing a "Kindy" theme for Muffin Tin Monday for a while now. She asked about it again today, and considering she only has five or six weeks left of being a kindy kid, I thought it was probably time!

The muffin helped with this tin, as it is intended to represent some of the things she likes about kindy.

Top Row: Strawberries (representing Fruit Time); ABC pikelets (representing Reading and Writing); Yoghurt with sprinkle face (representing "Making Friends", or "Playing with other kids". Actually this one was not her idea - she's quite shy - but she agreed to it.)

About Me

Hello, and welcome...
I love baking. And sugar. And decorating things - generally with sugar. Other things I love include my lovely and exceedingly patient husband, and our entrancing and not-so-patient daughter (commonly addressed as "The Muffin").
Here you will see lots of butter and lots of sugar... Oh yeah, and also my attempts to get my daughter to try new & healthy foods. Feel free to look around, and be sure to leave a comment to let me know you stopped by!